"Give me your tired, your poor. . .”

As many of you know, I’ve become the department evangelist for the utility, beauty and relevance of research methods.  My goal has always been to convince you that properly using research methods in your own work can make your work stronger, better and more convincing.  And, as you also know, I frequently find myself pointing out that many of our current debates in politics (whether in domestic or foreign policy) often have their roots in a question of research methodology.  For that reason, considering research methodology issues can give us better insight into many current policy debates. 

Today, I’d like you to stop and think for a few minutes about the following question:

How many poor people are there in America?

This question is undoubtedly of great importance to voters and policymakers.  For many individuals, the question of who you vote for when the presidential elections occur might rest on this series of questions: 

·         Has the number of poor people in America gone up or down in recent years? 

·         Are there now more poor people in America than there were four years ago? 

·         Are there less? 

·         And is the American government doing enough to help poor people in America? 

Presumably, if current economic and employment policies aren’t working then we would expect to see the number of poor in America to grow.  Conversely, if our policies are working well, then we would expect to see a shrinking of the number of poor in America. 

From a foreign policy context, we can go on to ask another question:

 Is globalization leading to a decrease or an increase in the number of poor in America? 

In the world? 

Does globalization inevitably enrich people?  Does it inevitably impoverish them?

As you consider this vast universe of questions we might ask about poverty, one thing becomes clear.  First and foremost it would be a good idea to agree on a way of measuring just exactly who is poor in America.  As we consider the contradictory findings of those who argue that poverty is growing, versus those who argue that actually it is decreasing, it’s certainly important to figure out if in fact these two groups of analysts are talking about the same thing.  In short, until we consider how we measure and define poverty, there’s really no point in trying to answer any of the other questions. (You knew we would wind up here, didn’t you?)

Now this is where it gets interesting from a policy standpoint.  You might have been shocked, as I was this morning, to encounter the following headline:  Half of All Americans are now Poor or Low-Income.  It sounds bad, doesn’t it?  It sounds as though clearly the US has failed as a nation if it cannot even manage to take care of or feed half of its people!  The headline evokes visions of mass causalties and starvation, doesn’t it?  

But take a few minutes and read the article for yourself.  What you’ll see is that in 2009, the government REDEFINED a couple of key terms:  Namely, it created a new term, known as “low-income individuals.”  Apparently, anyone who makes less than twice as much as the official poverty cut-off line is now defined as a low income individual.  Here’s a link to the numbers used to calculate who is low-income in America.

This does leave us with an interesting mathematical dilemma:  Namely, the fact that the median household income in America for a family of four is now around 50,000 dollars, while a family of 4 making 33,000 a year would be classified as low-income.   It appears that by raising the threshold of who is defined as poor, it is now possible to make the middle class segment of the population look smaller.  But you have to ask yourself – is this “just math” as President Obama claims, or is it more akin to the process of “lying with statistics”?  

Here, a positivist would argue that household income is the best way of measuring and classifying individuals according to whether they are low, medium or upper class.  However, others might point out that poverty is not exclusively a measure of income – rather, one would have to look at what the day to day lived experience of being low income in America is like.  Here, one could argue that it is not merely one’s monthly income that defines the experience of poverty – Rather, one would have to ask how one’s life is affected by living in a low-income neighborhood – presumably one with failing schools, gangs and violent crime.  (Thus, if we redefine “low income” and measure it differently so that many who fall into the ‘low income category’ actually do not live in low income neighborhoods but are rather:  twentysomethings living at home with their parents in a suburban neighborhood where they have access to cable TV, the internet and a refrigerator full of Haagen-Dazs;  retired individuals in good neighborhoods whose homes are paid off, or even military families with a large number of children who live on a safe military base with excellent schools – does the designation even make sense?) 

The US is not alone in thinking critically about how poverty is defined.  Here’s an article about an initiative in China to redefine standards for rural poverty.  This change in measurement would result in a new figure which is four times larger than the old one.  It would quadruple the number of individuals who are now defined as impoverished!  Here, at least, the Chinese are forthright, admitting that they want to redefine entitlements – That is, they have consciously decided that people who do not have access to health services, electricity and running water deserve to be classified as poor and to be the subject of government  policies to improve their living standards. 

Overall, the normative implication of the poverty debate in both nations seems to be that if people are poor, it is because the government or their communities have  failed them in some way.   There is a minimum standard of living which people are entitled to by virtue of being human.  Respecting the dignity of all persons thus means acknowledging the suffering of those in need and responding to it.  To do less than responding to someone who is dying or starving is unconscionable and immoral.  As a Christian, I agree wholeheartedly with that stance. 

However, as we’ve seen here, what’s interesting (and controversial) is how we define what that minimum standard should be, and who can thus be truly classified as being in need.  And this leads into my final point – which has to do with the universality or generalizability of a measure  of poverty.  In other words,  are American poverty statistics basically meaningless to everyone outside of the United States?  A researcher from the Heritage foundation says yes.   You see, the World Bank defines someone as poor if they live on less than one dollar and fifty cents a day.  By that standard, you might argue that no one in America is poor – since the ‘low income wage’ of 33,000 a year is actually ONE THOUSAND TIMES that of an impoverished person, according to the World Bank.  (The Heritage folks also have a bit of fun – pulling up statistics on how many “impoverished” Americans have:  colored TV’s, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a computer printer and so forth.  This is a Heritage trademark, and I remember helping to compile these same statistics for them back when I interned there during the Reagan Administration.)

This question clearly has ethical and moral implications for us as Christians as well.  Do we give our own charitable contributions to those who are dying abroad or do we give our contributions to those in our communities who are, arguably, “merely poor”?  And how do we advocate for the poor when the category of those defined as poor is so very broad?  As this article shows, these questions are a point of contention even among Christians.  As we think about how to share the gospel of Christ with our brothers and sisters throughout the holiday season,  we may begin to realize that sometimes there are no easy answers.  Nonetheless, I welcome your thoughts.  

On Economics, Prediction and two dollar wafflemakers

I always enjoy the Black Friday coverage in the news because we get to see reporters attempting to do something that , arguably, they don’t do particularly well.  Basically, Black Friday and Election Day are the two times we see members of the media attempting to sound knowledgeable as they attempt to predict the future.  That is, in both cases they tend to do things like:

Go to a location and watch what people do (shop, vote, riot)

Interview people and ask them about what they’re doing

And then go on to make larger predictions about what the economy will be like in the coming year based on their twenty minute observation period of a bunch of nonrandomly selected Walmart shoppers in their general area (just as later in the year, they will predict who will win the election based on their trip down to their local precinct).

As research methods scholars, hopefully, you have all been equally aghast at these reporters as you have watched them this week.  Some of the more egregious research methods violations I have observed have included:

1.        Commentators on the Today Show watching someone’s cell-phone video of a riot at the Walmart over the aforementioned waffle makers – authoritatively making  pronouncements such as “Yes, this is a sign of people’s desperation in these challenging economic times.”  Or “You can really see the decline of America here, as people are becoming more violent.”  The question is, I suppose, how many Walmart riots would you have to have observed, and in how many different locations, before you could actually say something generalizable about them?  Was this particular Walmart generalizable to the larger population of Walmarts?  Were the shoppers representative?  Why or why not?  (Also, were there any racist overtones to the media reporting on these issues?  If the rioters had been white, do you think the language would have been the same?  Perhaps it might have been described as “a tussle”, rather than “a riot”.  What do you think?)

2.        Here’s a typical report in which the reporter aggregates together a variety of violent incidents in the US and presents them to viewers. But we need to ask – are these news reports representative?  How did the reporter choose them?  Does this mean that ALL stores had violent incidents?

3.        Commentators this morning on the Today Show engaged in a somewhat more methodologically nuanced discussion regarding exactly what the economic spending figures from the weekend actually tell us.  At least one analyst pointed out that it’s a bit simplistic to make the claim that “More people spent more money this weekend and that shows that consumer confidence is up and the economy will be on the upswing.”  She somewhat intelligently pointed out that in fact one might want to know whether the people who spent a great deal of money actually HAD that money (which they were thus putting into circulation in the economy) or whether in fact they were simply wracking  up additional debts that they would then not be able to pay.   (For more on that point, I’d like to introduce you to one of my favorite videos of all-time).

The Today commentator then actually made the following statement, which I thought was interesting:  “If in fact people were merely charging things they couldn’t afford, then that would explain why most of the spending occurred early on Friday and then settled down around  Saturday evening.  This might be a sign that people were reaching their credit limits.”  She then went on to point out that there had been previous years when people spent a lot of Black Friday but then spent little for the rest of the holiday season.    In other words, one shouldn’t extrapolate a trend based on only looking at one data point.

4.        Finally, there was an interesting conversation in many venues about the SES or socioeconomic status of the people lining up on Black Friday.  If most of those who line up for deals early on Friday morning are of lower socioeconomic status, then what that mean?  Here, one would have to actually have empirical evidence that this was the case.  At least some of the Occupy websites suggest that lower SES individuals have been “manipulated” by corporations into wanting things they can’t afford and spending money they cannot have.  Others have suggested that only lower SES people would be desperate enough to participate in the Black Friday madness.  The first statement seems to imply that lower SES people are more easily manipulated, something which seems a bit condescending and maybe even racist.  Honestly, there’s probably a research article in there somewhere --  but it would involve studying Black Friday in a methodologically rigorous way – through selecting a variety of locations to observe, or perhaps recruiting people to answer a survey about why they participate in these events.  What might you study if you had the chance?

Thoughts about conferencing

I spent the weekend at one of my favorite conferences – the Northeast Region conference of the International Studies Association.  It took me several years to actually work out for myself:

1.        What the purpose of an academic conference is/was

2.       How to choose an academic conference to attend and

3.       How to use your time effectively at an academic conference

As the Bible tells us in First Corinthians: When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Similarly, I would argue that my views towards academic conference have matured as I myself have matured.  Graduate students in particular seem to think that an academic conference is a jousting tournament – where one goes to spar with colleagues and competitors.  The point of the conference, to a graduate student, sometimes seem to be that one can sit in a room while colleagues give papers thinking some variant of the following thoughts:

a.      I have read more on that subject than this guy has.  How dare he think he knows something about that subject?

b.    My paper is better than his.  Just wait until I give my paper!

Or (my favorite)

c.      I can’t wait until the Q and A session, so I can ask my well-prepared question, which will drill into my opponent like a missile, exposing his weaknesses and humiliating him.

(Another popular thought is something along the lines of:  “Haha, this guy only had fourteen people show up to listen to him read his paper.  I had TWICE THAT MANY at my paper session.  I’m the best!”)

Nope!  If you’ve ever had any of these thoughts at a conference, then you are missing the point.

Another thought that one sometimes has as a graduate student (or even as a young academic) is that the point of an academic conference is that you will bring your work to a forum where older, wiser colleagues will mentor you and ultimately ‘fix’ your work for you, bringing it to a publishable standard.  Particularly as a young academic, I remember feeling disappointed when this exchange didn’t magically happen at any of the conferences I attended.  Sometimes I got some good feedback on my work – an audience member perhaps suggested expanding on some minor point I had made in my paper and I ended out fleshing it out more in the final draft;  someone suggested an article that I hadn’t yet read;  someone (probably a grad student) pointed out some problem I had in misunderstanding a theorist and I was able to go back and fix it – but ultimately one’s work is one’s own.  Your journey as a academic is sometimes a lonely one, and often it feels like you actually ARE the only person in the world we cares about some topic like “the comparative discourse of internet addiction.” 

That’s where it becomes important to choose the right conference.  ISA-NE (to the cognoscenti) is an international relations conference with a particular “flavor” to it.  I think this is largely because of some of the awesome people who have stepped forward to lead this organization.  Laura Sjoberg and Rosemary Shinko are two wonderful feminist international relations theorists.  They, along with Rene Marlin-Bennett, have consistently mentored grad students and shared their expertise on a growing body of literature about “issues of the body” in international relations.  As a result, the conference probably attracts more women academics than a lot of IR conferences.  It’s also one of the least competitive and most supportive environments I’ve ever seen at a conference.  I was awed to see the ways in which the panelists interacted with each other, cooperatively giving feedback and encouraging young academics – who are well represented at this conference.  Patrick Jackson is a top-notch IR theorist who also makes a point of mentoring new grad students.  He has set up several events at the conference specifically for young academics, and strives to include them and welcome them to every aspect of the conference.  (Many of the ISA-NE members blog at "Duck of Minerva", which links at the bottom of this blogpage.) 

Finally, the conference has a significant representation by academics interested in “doing” critical theory and constructivism within international relations.  At some mainstream conferences, it’s possible to encounter a certain amount of hostility by mainstream (positivist) theorists when you announce that:  you think that language matters, that you think that popular culture matters, and that you think that power resides outside of traditional political institutions.  In contrast, there were a number of wonderful papers given at this conference on subjects as varied as “the language of international relations in Battlestar Galactica,”  the politics of creating war memorials and beauty contests as the subject of contestation between nations.   Here's the conference program, if you're interested. 

I’ve also come to realize that a conference is, to some degree, like a support group.  Often I think that as academics we just want to know that we are not wasting our time and that we are not alone in our “quirky” weird research interests.  I was thrilled to get to know so many fine academics who are also interested in the politics of disease – from the University of Toronto, from Bridgewater College and from Harvard University.  I’m excited about putting together a panel specifically on the politics of disease at a future ISA session.

How I spent my Fall Break

I hope everyone enjoyed Fall Break.  I had promised myself that I would take some time with family and also that I would spend some time at the gym, all of which I did.  However, I also did a bit of my long-term research work – the kind of stuff that gets put aside with the day to day tasks of writing lectures, grading papers and advising students.  Over this break, I:

1.        Put together what are hopefully the final edits on my manuscript on apocalyptic politics – coming soon from Rowman and Littlefield (At some point, I’ll write a post on reacting to criticism, and the very public criticisms you sometimes receive as an academic – something I will never really quite get used to).

2.       Began working on a new book prospectus for a project I began thinking about while in Oxford last summer (I’ll provide more details once it’s done).

3.       Read a really interesting book – Please note that you can get your own used copy from Amazon for less than a dollar, so there’s no excuse not to read this book, which is the subject of today’s blog.

I will not be teaching Research Methods this spring – but if I were, “Explaining Hitler” is a book which I might include in a reading list.  This book, by the historian Ron Rosenbaum, is not actually about Hitler – Rather, it’s metatheory.  It’s about HOW we have attempted to explain who Hitler is and what he did.  That is, it’s about research methods, and it touches on all the sorts of questions you may have asked in my classes:

A.       Why do different types of people seem to favor different types of explanations?

B.      Are some types of explanations ‘in vogue’ at a particular time, and why is that?

C.      In what ways do our own environments, our own beliefs about causality, and even our own values end up affecting HOW we theorize?

D.      Can you explain a behavior without in some way excusing the behavior? AND

E.       Are there some events so dreadful and evil that we cannot explain them in rational terms?

Although World War Two ended almost seventy years ago, Rosenbaum takes us on a kind of chronological tour of the various ways in which analysts have attempted to explain what CAUSED Hitler.  He considers the utility of Great Man theories vs. grand social forces theories – examining the thinking of those who make the argument that “the time was ripe in Germany for some sort of leader to come to the fore who might use anti-Semitism as a way of gaining control.”  In other words, he argues that some people believe “if Hitler hadn’t arisen, then someone else like he would have.”  

But the main reason I’ll be assigning this book the next time I teach research methods is because it says so much about ethics, morality and faith.  Namely, throughout, Rosenbaum cites a number of scholars who ask if one can simply explain something without judging, and to what degree, as he puts it, “to explain something is somehow to excuse it.”  That is, if we say that grand social forces explain the rise of Nazism, does that also mean that Germany itself, or the modern world, was implicated in the rise of Hitler?  Does it ultimately excuse him in some way – at least partially --  for what he did?  What does it mean to say that someone or something is a ‘product of his environment’?

Rosenbaum plays with a related argument – which essentially says:  “Even if you did something heinous and evil, but believed that you were actually pursuing the cause of righteousness, does THAT excuse you from bearing the label of evil?”  I found this section of his work intriguing because it so closely parallels some of the conversations we have been having in our terrorism class – about those who carry out actors because they are:

A.       Following orders OR

B.      Deluded into believing that their Islamic faith commands them to engage in jihad

(In other words, is it possible to accidentally commit evil – versus knowingly committing evil?  Rosenbaum introduces us to a debate among two Oxford scholars – one of whom believes that Hitler actually believed what he wrote in Mein Kamp, and another who believes that Hitler wrote the book for the purposes of manipulating others.  The question then becomes, which Hitler is more evil – the one who was deluded and who perhaps actually thought he was doing good, through “defending Germany” or the one who was manipulative and knew what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway?  Is this a valid or a meaningless distinction?)

The final question which I think is of particular interest to Regent students in the following:  Are there events in history which cannot be explained with recourse to rationality alone?  Here, Rosenbaum suggests that:

A.       Either Hitler was demonic

OR

B.       He was a man who was significantly more evil than other men, but that he still belongs on the spectrum of humanity – and that his actions can be explained by making recourse to other theories of human behavior.  In other words, we can find a sociological or psychological explanation for his behavior vs. a theological or moral explanation for his behavior.

Here, Rosenbaum asks us to think about WHY we are drawn to certain types of explanations and suggests that ultimately the explanation you choose may say something significant about the character of the explainer.  In other words, he says that those who want to see Hitler as demonic are driven by a need to draw a clear line between Hitler and other humans – they want to believe that such a thing could never happen again because Hitler’s behavior was inhuman, defying description and comprehension.  On the other hand, if you believe that Hitler was a demonic aberration, you can feel somewhat more sure that this type of evil will never occur again.

Rosenbaum also discourses at length about a documentary which began by showing us Hitler’s baby pictures – Here he asks, “if we start from the assumption that Hitler was once a blank slate, capable of becoming anything or anyone, then don’t we ultimately end up blaming the event or the person who “warped” Hitler, turning him into what he became, rather than blaming Hitler himself?”  In other words, does explaining become excusing?

These are similar discussions to those we might have about a number of dead dictators like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden or Qaddafi?  Does the fact that these men are dead mean that our world is now safer?  Were they each an individual aberration which says nothing about the character of humanity, or was each actually a manifestation of the dark side which all of humanity is capable of achieving, the characteristic which Rosenbaum refers to as “the Hitler within”?

Is everyone who commits an act of terrorism equally guilty or do those who plan and carry out terrorism bear some special responsibility?  Does it matter if the terrorist believes that he is operating from a position of ‘moral rectitude’?  What do you think?

On U-Turns, Detours and Academic Productivity

There’s a piece of common wisdom among academics that I’d like to share with you today.  One of the best ways to become a productive scholar – the type who frequently introduces an innovative way of looking at a problem and  who is never short of research topics  -- is to read widely outside your field of primary interest.  That’s because often new and novel research ideas in one field come about through a process of ‘borrowing’ from another field.  Within political science, we can identify approaches to looking at problems that have been borrowed from psychology, sociology and economics, to name a few. 

Back when I was in graduate school at the University of Michigan, I was fortunate to be able to take a class with Robert Axelrod, the award-winning author of the Evolution of Cooperation, a seminal work in the field of international relations.  He  offered his students a lot of advice as we began our academic careers and some of it has stuck with us today.  First, he encouraged us to apply for every single fellowship and grant, seminar and program for which we might be remotely eligible.  I still remember him asking us, “What have you got to lose?  All it costs you is the price of a stamp – but that grant might be worth ten thousand dollars.”  This shows you how old I am – since now most of the applying takes place on line (making it even cheaper, by the way . . . )

The other piece of advice had to do with this notion of borrowing.  He was constantly asking how explanations which helped in understanding and predicting one type of phenomena might be useful in explaining other phenomena.  I remember watching his mind work – as he asked us whether, for example, computer models which predicted which buildings were stable and which were prone to collapse – might be applied to asking about stability in the international system, or the likelihood of a regime change.  (Those of you in my research methods class will recognize this as the principle of generalizability.) 

Recently my own extradisciplinary reading has been in the field of engineering ethics, and I’ll blog more about that later this week.  I’ve been enjoying a book by Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen called Moral Machines:  Teaching Robots Right from Wrong.  In it, the authors make the argument that increasingly, humans are turning over many functions of running society to machines which make decisions which affect our lives.  These machines are using automation and algorithms to do everything from deciding who gets an extra ‘pat-down’ at the airport, to automatically shutting off your credit card if you engage in an unusual transaction, to shutting off a nuclear reactor if a breach is detected.  As we begin to traverse this brave new world in which both humans and machines think, make decisions and affect society, there are certainly ways in which political scientists can begin to think about the politics which will arise.  But more about that later this week . . .

Intelligence, Prediction and Crowdsourcing

How good are you at predicting the outcomes of political events?  Would you have predicted that the Arab Springs were going to occur?  That September 11 was going to happen?  That the US would (eventually) capture and kill Osama bin Laden?

How about if there were a utility which collected and combined the predictions of several individuals?  If we were to aggregate all of your predictions, and all of your friend’s predictions and those of experts all over the world, would that be a better way to predict what might be likely to happen?  Is a group of experts better at predicting events than a single expert?  A statistician would suggest that by having a group of predictors, it might be possible to realize a MEAN (average) or MEDIAN prediction (the one found directly in the center of all predictions).  For example, if we were to ask a question like:

How much longer do you expect that China will remain a one-party state?

 you might receive a number of predictions which ranged from an optimistic ‘six months’ to a pessimistic ‘fifteen years’.    If you asked enough people, you could expect that the predictions would thus form a bell curve, with most people making a prediction which is somewhat conservative and falls squarely in the middle, while only a few individuals would make the sort of extreme predictions which would fill in the ends of the curve.  This article explains what the baseline requirements are for group or aggregate prediction to work.  (It also explains why ‘polling the audience’  and phoning a friend works so well on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”)

New developments in information technology have allowed us to begin experimenting with this relatively new idea of crowdsourcing.  Social networking technologies allow individuals to work together on group projects – like collecting information, compiling information or making predictions – on their own time from the privacy of their homes.  Wikipedia is an experiment in crowdsourcing, as articles are written together by groups of analysts who serve as checks on one another’s work.  Foreign Policy magazine has offered some wonderful examples of the ways that individuals all over the world worked together to pass on, compile and share information on the location of survivors after the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Recently, I was invited to join an experiment in predicting world events which is being put together by this organization. Feel free to visit the link, to look around and even to apply to participate in this project.  So far, I’ve only participating in making a few predictions but I’m starting to see some problems with the model.  My concern is that the most enthusiastic participants are likely to be people who feel very strongly about particular issues.  Therefore,  I’m concerned that the people who participate the most may be the least representative.  People who are moderates might be less inclined to give their opinions because they feel less strongly about the issues.  It will be interesting to see how this project works out in the long term.  

Devotional: Have you Considered My servant Job?

Job 1:8-12

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁸ Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”

 ⁹ “Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. ¹⁰ “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. ¹¹ But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

 ¹² The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

   Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.

What does this passage have to do with research methods?  Plenty!  This is about an EXPERIMENT which the devil conducts upon Job, an upright man – with God’s agreement that he be allowed to do so.

First, God proposes a hypothesis  (defined as:

1.  a proposition, or set of propositions, set forth as an explanation for the occurrence of some specified group of phenomena, either asserted merely as a provisional conjecture to guide investigation (working hypothesis) or accepted as highly probable in the light of established facts.

2.

a proposition assumed as a premise in an argument.)

The hypothesis is:

H1:  There are those who praise God in all situations.  (Job is an example of this phenomenon).

Satan then offers a counter argument, based on an ALTERNATIVE THEORY:

Let’s call his theory the “good fortune school of belief.”

(Here, a theory is defined as: : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena <the wave theory of light>

Satan proposes to explain RELIGIOUS BELIEF in the following way:

H2:  As people’s GOOD FORTUNES increase, people’s propensity to PRAISE GOD increases also.

(Here, the related hypothesis states that:

H3:  As people’s GOOD FORTUNES decrease, people’s propensity to PRAISE GOD  also decreases.

In other words, there is a LINEAR, POSITIVE relationship between good fortune and praise. (We can graph this on an axis.)

Satan believes that he has identified a principle which is:L

1.        Generalizable:  true about people EVERYWHERE at every time in the world

2.       EMPIRICALLY OBSERVABLE (we’ll get to that)

3.       Falsifiable

4.       Parsimonious  (explains a lot with very few variables)

AN ASIDE:  the Bible contains many generalizable observations about human behavior  -- across time and cultures (particularly in Proverbs). 

God then proposes that Job’s existence serves to FALSIFY the devil’s hypothesis. 

When one makes a statement that “all people do X”, one only needs ONE data point showing that ‘this person doesn’t do x’ to falsify the general law.  (i.e. all birds fly.  If I can identify ONE species of bird that can’t fly,  then I have proven that the law does not hold categorically).  This has been referred to as the ‘black swan’ principle.

Here, Satan posits that:

All people will praise God when their fortunes are good.

All people will forsake God when their fortunes are NOT good.

Then, Satan is given permission to TEST Job by afflicting him.   Job will then serve as a data point in an experiment.

NOTICE, how after Satan is initially proven wrong (Job loses his wealth and does not forsake God), Satan MODIFIES his hypothesis, NARROWING it in scope. He goes from:

People who suffer bad fortune will forsake God to:

People who suffer from bodily affliction will forsake God.

In the final analysis, Satan’s hypothesis is DISPROVEN by Job, who is blameless and upright.    He notes in Job 16:16 “My face is red with weeping, deep shadows ring my eyes yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.”

Faith makes us do UNEXPECTED things.  Everyone EXPECTED Job to give up and lose hope.  They saw that as a rule – this is what people do.

Yet he defied expectations and proved the devil wrong.

Research methods can be powerful tools in seeking after righteousness, particularly when God is on our side.